Tom Brady Is No Longer Endorsing Trump Because He Never Did Anyway

Under normal circumstances, the idea of a celebrity supporting a presidential candidate isn't exactly national news. Or it shouldn't be, anyway. But when it comes to two of the most popular-slash-reviled men in America, it's easy to lose all sense of perspective. That's what happened earlier this month when Tom Brady was widely reported to have "endorsed" Donald Trump for president, a news item which nearly every outlet saw fit to run with. "Trump nabs Tom Brady endorsement" headlined Politico, "Tom Brady endorses Donald Trump", announced CNN.

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So what? Well, the problem is, he never did any such thing—something as a fan of both the Patriots and basic human decency I was emotionally invested in proving. The fact that the two are friends in the first place is bad enough, sure, but we've all got asshole buddies. Endorsing Trump for president, on the other hand, would have been a tacit approval of many of the corrosive ideas he's used so effectively as a cudgel in his somehow still-not-imploding campaign. Asked at the time about having one of Trump's "Make America Great Again" hats in his locker, Brady repeated that the two were pals.

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"He's a guy who likes winning like you, you think he's got what it takes?" a reporter asked.

"I hope so. It would be great," Brady said, laughing, in what was already a goofy atmosphere. "There'd be a putting green on the White House lawn I'm sure of that," he said with a smirk.

Brady is well aware of how anything he says can be spun Rorschach-like into whatever the interpreter wants it to be. He explained as much yesterday in an interview on Boston's WEEI.

"It's just a different world than when I started in professional football," he said. "Even an off-handed comment like that, like you said, that people may run with. And I understand why people do run with it because you get the clicks and that type of stuff. It's just people doing their job. A comment like that, I try to have fun with certain things."

In other words, media critic Brady is calling us out on our bullshit. Of course he's saying it in that noncommittal way that he says everything.

"When you're speaking publicly, you have a lot of people listening, and I think it's probably in everyone's best interest, in today's day and age, to say as little as possible," he went on. "I think that's just the way it is and the way our culture is right now. Because everything is really out there and that's just the way it is."

The various reports posited Brady's so-called endorsement to serve as proof that he's a Republican, a racist cretin like Trump, at worst, in the contemporary equivalent of Michael Jordan's infamous "Republicans buy sneakers, too" comment. But if you've ever listened to Brady speak — a man who once endorsed a concussion-prevention drink of all things — it's pretty clear that he's committed to withholding whatever is in there from us. Can you blame him?

He elaborated on Trump:

"I mean, look, I've known him for a long time," he said. "He's been a fun guy that I've had a lot of time around. The fact that he's running has obviously led to a lot of stories and debates and ratings were huge for all those Republican debates and so forth.

"One way or another, it's so far away from when the election will be. Whatever I vote is going to be my own personal choice based on how I feel. I don't even know what the issues are. I haven't paid attention to politics in a long time. It's actually not something that I really even enjoy. It's way off my radar."

As it should be. There's a common refrain around the Patriots organization that Bill Belichick espouses: Do your job. I wish more of us in the media would take it to heart as well.